Ombra Mai Fu
by poisons
Summary: A series of loosely connected vignettes that don't really go anywhere. MarkRoger slash abounds. Written for the LJ slash100 challenge.
1. ends

003. ends 

Sometimes Roger just can't stand it. Mark knows this. He knows it because sometimes he just can't stand it either.

There are times when Roger coughs, or sneezes, or gets a headache, or feels an odd pain, and they both start hoping fervently that this isn't the end. That's how it starts. A cough. A sneeze. A headache. Pain. They start thinking of lasts. Last words, last touches, last kisses. What they'll say and do if it comes to that.

Of course, they don't discuss this. They can talk about anything except this. But Mark knows, because he sees the look on Roger's face when this happens. He sees the pale fear in his eyes and he knows it's in his own eyes, too.

It always passes. That moment where they meet each other's eyes and they realize what they're both thinking, and when the thunderclouds or the heartwrenching violins or whatever they're expecting to hear or see doesn't come, one of them smiles.

Usually it's Roger. It's a false smile, more for his own sake than for Mark's, really. He's not quite the same for the rest of the day, either, idly picking the strings on his guitar sometimes, but mostly just spacing out. Leaves for work if he has to, the same expression on his face.

He works late, so he gets in late, and Mark is almost always asleep when he gets back. Sometimes Mark just falls asleep where he's standing when this happens. Worrying makes him exhausted, because when he worries, he films, trying to be constructive, and by the time he gets back to their loft he feels like he's going to collapse any second, and that's the way he likes it. He likes being able to keep his mind off of it, either through his camera or by just sleeping.

Sometimes it's like that. Sometimes Mark is sleeping on the couch when he gets back, his lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed, occasionally mumbling in his sleep what he can never bring himself to say out loud. And he doesn't want to wake him up, but sometimes Roger just can't stand it. He has to touch him, because it's the only way he can think of to reassure. So he does, strokes Mark's face, lightly, but of course Mark wakes up, slowly, leaning into Roger's fingers at first and finally opening his eyes. After a moment he returns Roger's smile from hours ago, gripping his hand and urging him down on the couch with him. Gentle but insistent. He rarely insists, unless something's seriously bothering him. He won't say anything, but Roger knows. Roger knows because it's bothering him too.


	2. touch

028. touch 

Maureen was always touching, always caressing and stroking his hair, his face, his shoulders, his back, and it may have been why he put up with everything else she did for so long. Mark loves physical contact. He loves intimacy. Closeness. Arms around shoulders, hands on arms, knees touching under the table kind of closeness. He's a sucker for it, and he knows it. He loves being close to Roger, because Roger loves being close to him, because Roger does all of those things without even thinking, because it's almost not natural for them not to be so close.

He almost has a heart attack when he feels someone climbing into his bed next to him, and so he kicks and jumps away before he's even completely awake.

"Jesus, Mark, calm down. It's me, it's Roger, it's okay." His words are curt, but his voice is soothing, placating. "You alright? Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up." Mark mumbles something in response, trying to form coherent sentences. "I can leave if you want," Roger adds. "It's just cold, you know. You're shivering too." Yes, Mark is keenly aware of that, and he's aware of how futile it is to try to get deeper under the covers, because that's all there is, but he's still been trying whenever the cold wakes him up.

"No. Stay." Even he can hear how pitiful he sounds right now. Normally he's in control, but he's so sleepy and so cold right now it's impossible. He lets Roger help him rearrange the blankets and the sheets and the pillows, lets him add his own to the pile, and they get in bed together, and now his brain is fully functional and trying to catch up to the situation, and is content to leave it alone.

Mark loves being touched, but he loves touching a little more. He'll cuddle with anyone - all they need to do is ask. Most people don't. He takes hugs and kisses on the cheek, but is rarely able to give them back. Roger's the only one who doesn't move fast enough.

Despite that, he doesn't really mean to curl around Roger the way he does. Maybe he's just used to cuddling with people in his bed. Maybe it was a way for him to get warmer. But one moment they're shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, and the next moment Roger's twitching wakes him and he realizes just how much closer they are. Sharing body heat with someone is probably about the most intimate one could become with someone else, short of sleeping with them. Well, fucking them.

Soon he's asleep again anyway, and the next morning when Roger is gone he can't explain why he should feel colder than he was last night.


	3. confession

079. confession 

He's surprised when Roger tells him that he and Mimi are over. As far as Mark knows everything's been okay between them. No fights. No relapses. No insecurities leading to infidelities. And Roger is _calm_, which, when it comes to Mimi, never happens. It's always blind joy or blind rage. Not in between.

It's just _weird_, and when he asks why, all he gets from Roger is, "We decided it wasn't working out, and figured we should just move on."

"Move on to _what_?" Roger is about to say something, but stops himself. "Did something happen?" It's a stupid question. There's a hundred reasons for them to move _away_, from each other, at least. It could be Mimi's addiction or her relationship with Benny or Roger's need to save someone after he couldn't help April - things they just can't get past, though they try. But moving on means moving to something else.

Then again, he's hopeful. He doesn't want to pry, because he's afraid it might slip that there's a part of him that's relieved that this turned out the way it did. So he lets it drop, and doesn't notice when Roger tries to speak but doesn't seem to be able to find the right words. He doesn't notice that the words Roger is rehearsing are not lyrics, but parts of a confession.


	4. firsts

004. firsts 

Roger is the impulsive one. Mark can take forever to do something, if he does it at all. He waits, weighing pros and cons, possible consequences. Roger forgets to do this sometimes. Frequently. On an impulse, Roger took off across the country and didn't contact anyone for weeks, and just as impulsively, he came back without a word.

Roger loves Mimi, but she isn't the only reason he came back. He thought of Mark just as frequently as he thought of her, and the thought that the last words they exchanged were so cold kept him awake at night sometimes. He wanted to tell Mark that he hadn't meant to be so cruel about the things he'd said just before leaving, and that maybe Mark had a point about what he had said. About how Roger was running, avoiding all the painful thoughts. He wanted to tell him that he was sorry for leaving him alone the way he had, more alone than he was before. He wanted to tell him that, for what it's worth, he finally managed to write the song he'd wanted to write.

For once, he planned how he was going to say everything, but when he sees Mark, he just forgets it. He can hardly speak at all, and neither can Mark, really, so they just move toward each other in a hug that's long overdue, and the way Mark's shoulders are sagging suggests just how hard the past two months have been on him, and for a moment Roger feels horrible again.

He just planned on making things better between them, taking back the harsh words and fixing their friendship. Instead he finds himself kissing Mark, his fingertips pressing into the suede jacket and the shoulders underneath. He's trying to be gentle but after a moment Mark is the one sucking and biting his lips, curling his fists around handfuls of Roger's shirt and pulling, trying to get closer.

Mark has to be in control. Roger knows this, so he lets Mark lead him down off the roof into the loft. They go into Mark's room, and Roger thinks that maybe _this_ was what was keeping him up all those nights. Thoughts of Mark going down on him, his mouth hot and slick and wonderful even through the latex; thoughts of Mark pushing inside of him, hard and desperate but deliberate; thoughts of Mark's hands on him, fingers plucking and tweaking at his skin, nails digging in, leaving tiny crescents on his chest and shoulders and neck and scalp. Mark pushing his hips down, holding him there, his brows furrowing, trying to concentrate but coming apart a little more every time he pushes back in.

When Mark comes, he falls forward, gripping Roger's shoulders, his breathing ragged. Shaking. It takes him a moment to go down on Roger again, and only a few more moment until Roger comes too, screaming and moaning and thrashing, pulling handfuls of Mark's hair, trying not to fuck his mouth and scare him off from doing this again.

They haven't said much, and Roger keeps trying to remember what it was he was going to tell him before, but he can't think of it. It can probably wait anyway. He knows they're both too spent to have a deep discussion about anything, especially everything he was going to say. Whatever it was.


	5. kink

A/N: Thanks to my reviewers. I got a question recently about the meaning of the phrase "ombra mai fu", and I apologize for such an esoteric title. It comes from an opera, _Serse_, and means (in Italian) "Shade there never was". I'd like to say there's some meaning relevant to the series, but really I was just having trouble picking a title.

Enjoy.

072. kink 

Being a realist is difficult. Normally Mark has no problem pushing his desires aside, especially if they get in the way of more important things. When he realized that being friends with Roger wasn't exactly enough for him anymore, he put it out of his mind, because that way, it was easier to deal with Roger's standoffishness, and then his relationship with Mimi, and then his relocation to across the fucking continent. Then Roger came back, and then Mimi came back, and Mark, for some reason, had to try harder to reconcile his desire to see Roger happy and enjoying his life for once with the desire to fuck his friend softly into a mattress, listening to moans and pleas and ...

It was difficult, sure, but by that time Mark was used to forgetting his desires and focusing on his friends'. Part of being a realist is believing that just because you want someone doesn't mean they will - or even should - want you, so if they don't you'd better fucking get used to it.

Of course, it eventually turned out that Roger wasn't quite satisfied with just being friends anymore either, and Mark didn't have to deal with those stupid feelings of unrequited attraction anymore. He didn't have to feel quite so pathetic.

Sex actually came first. They didn't really talk much about anything - why they were doing it, where this was headed - they just _did_ it, and it was surprisingly easy to skip the subtle struggle for power and get to the more satisfying parts. Mark figured it was a good indication that, since they got past the first time so easily, and since neither of them was drunk or rebounding, their relationship after this would be better, easier, than most of his previous relationships.

He was right in some ways, and wrong in others. Being a realist in a relationship with a romantic is more difficult than being a realist alone, and if that romantic is HIV-positive ... well. When things get hard for one of them, it's hard for both of them, by default. It's hard for one to get the other to talk, because neither of them sees the point. So they become reclusive, and it only lasts for a while, but for both of them, the fear of losing control is always there. More and more frequently it feels like that monster is just around the corner.

Mark has never asked why Roger owns handcuffs. He saw them early on, digging through Roger's nightstand for condoms and lube, but didn't manage to make the correlation until later, after they were both spent and he was just about to fall asleep. He'd wondered, briefly, but Roger was already sleeping and soon after he was too.

They've moved from the drawer to the top of the nightstand. He might have missed them if the light didn't move so sharply across the edge, twisting Mark's stomach into knots in a way he can't explain. He wonders who Roger has used them on, and it bothers him a little before he stops himself, and then begins to wonder why Roger's moved them. It's so jarring, seeing them and feeling this rush of complicated emotions - resentment and arousal were always difficult to deal with at the same time - that he forgets why he came in here in the first place and turns to leave again. He nearly slams into Roger on the way out, coming back into his room. Nothing is said, and Mark moves past him to go into his own room. "Mark?" Roger calls but Mark doesn't respond and continues through the door to his room, closing it behind him.

_Hey. Realist, remember?_ Mark knows he's not the first person Roger's fucked, but that's not the problem, not really. Maybe those handcuffs are an artifact, a reminder of whoever it was he bought those for - or who bought them for _him_ - and that does bother Mark. Realist or not, he doesn't like feeling like Roger is _settling_ for him when he really still wants Mimi or - god forbid - April.

Knock, knock.

"Yeah?"

"Can I come in?" Roger knows something's up. He'll only ask for permission when he knows it's serious. Mark thinks about it, deciding whether this is a conversation he really wants to have.

"Yeah." The door opens slowly, and Roger closes the door behind him, and though there's obviously not going to be anyone else wandering through their apartment, it makes Mark feel marginally more comfortable.

They avoid each other's eyes for a moment, not saying anything, and Mark knows that Roger knows what's bothering him. They're at the end of one of those stretches where Roger became reclusive and so Mark did too, and they haven't seen much of each other in the past few days. So they're talking now, maybe that's good. Maybe they'll get better at it if they keep it up.

"I was going to get rid of them, you know."

"Get rid of what?" Mark replies, playing stupid, acting like it's no big deal.

"You know what. The handcuffs." He figured Roger would call him on it, though. It was worth a shot.

"You don't have to do that."

"I definitely have to do it now, if it's bothering you."

"No." He pauses. "I mean, I knew you had them, for a while. It doesn't really bother me."

"Would you have said anything if they had?"

_Probably not_, he doesn't say. "You wanted to use them, didn't you?"

"Kind of," Roger admits. "But I figured you wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"I just ... had a feeling." There's disappointment in his voice, and that makes Mark angry, inexplicably. Like maybe if Roger is going to try to hide this kind of thing he should do better or just not bother at all. Like if he's going to compare Mark to his other lovers then he should be honest about it, come out and say that this isn't about kinky sex. This is about Mimi, or April, or whoever it was.

"You were wrong," he replies, even though he wasn't, not until now.

Their eyes finally meet, Roger's questioning, surprised, Mark's determined. A part of him knows that he's being ridiculous. That just because Roger may not be over Mimi and/or April yet doesn't make their relationship less valid. He knows some things take forever to get past. And he hates himself for feeling like he has to live up to them, and he hates that there's little - if anything - that he can do if Roger does feel that way.

"Let me know if, you know. You get uncomfortable," Roger tells him, looping the chain around the bars on the bedframe. Mark's already _uncomfortable_, to say the least. The cuffs are a little too tight and his heart's beating a little too fast and he's feeling a little too exposed with his sweater off and his wrists chained to his bed to be comfortable, exactly. But that's sort of what this kind of thing is supposed to be about, isn't it? Pushing you outside your comfort zone. Forcing you to trust the other person.

And it occurs to him that maybe that's what Roger wanted all along, and even if they never talk about this, it's something he can tell himself. Even if he's wrong and this really was about that other person. Whoever it was.

As uncomfortable as he is, he's still getting hard, watching Roger get undressed, dropping his clothes to the floor, feeling the mattress give as he gets in bed, smelling his cologne as he leans down to put his lips to Mark's. As familiar as Roger's kiss has become, there's still something odd about it now, since Mark's hands are tied, literally, and he can't touch Roger at all, which he doesn't realize until he tugs against the cuffs and remembers that they're there in the first place. He growls a little, frustrated, and Roger pulls back. "You all right?"

"Yeah, sorry." It's getting harder to speak now, with Roger's tongue and teeth on his neck and his ear and his collar bone, fingers trailing down, tweaking Mark's nipples, moving down his stomach and lingering just above his cock before shifting down to his thighs, stroking the skin there. "You fucking _tease_," Mark mutters, his hips arching, trying to get closer to Roger's fingers and failing. Roger doesn't normally do this kind of thing, and Mark hates it at the same time that he loves it, and he has to admit that if he were in Roger's position and Roger in his position, he'd be doing the same thing. Teasing.

Then again, would he have that much willpower? Would he be able to stand _not_ touching Roger, _not_ fucking him? Would he be able to stand watching Roger thrashing and moaning, like he's doing right now?

Well, maybe.

His eyes have been squeezed shut while Roger's been going down on him. His hands are clenched, his fingernails digging into his palms, and he's still struggling against the cuffs a little, wanting to touch Roger so badly he could die, wanting to sink his fingers into Roger's hair, but having to settle for pressing his fingernails into his own scalp. He's got nothing to hold onto and it's making him crazy, crazy enough to start tugging at his own hair.

He assumed that Roger would be fucking _him_ tonight, and that would have been fine. It would have gone along with this whole kinky game, where he's immobilized and helpless and Roger is free to do whatever he wants. He's surprised when he feels the sudden cool of lube on his cock, still a shock despite the condom, and he finally opens his eyes, looking up at Roger, who is straddling him now, lowering himself onto Mark's cock. It's all Mark can do to keep his hips still, to let Roger take it at his own pace, because he'd hate for this to have to stop because of his own excessive enthusiasm. But after a minute, Roger's saying, "Fuck me," and it sounds more like a request than an order, and it's almost enough to make Mark come right then. And now Roger's the one who has to hold on to something, pushing the heels of his hands into his forehead, dragging his nails down his chest, gripping Mark's hips, muscles seizing and tensing and breath hitching in his throat, streams of obscenities falling from his lips.

Roger's orgasm seems to catch him by surprise, and he shudders and growls, still swearing ("Fuck. _Fuck_."), and Mark soon follows. Roger lies down next to him, kissing him almost lazily, as if this were all routine - this kinky mindfuck sex where neither of them can tell who is seducing who. Despite the haze that's rapidly setting in, as Roger's unlocking the cuffs, Mark manages to say, "I'm not her, you know." The smile leaves Roger's face and Mark hates to ruin it for him, but for once he feels the urge to talk.

"Who, exactly?"

"I don't know. You bought those for someone, though, and I don't think it was me."

"Is that what you think this is about?" His words should be harsh and angry, but they sound more hurt than anything.

"I don't know what this is about. Boredom, maybe. But you were _hiding_ them, and why else would you do that unless they reminded you of _someone_?"

The corners of Roger's mouth are pulling down, and he hesitates for a moment before saying, "My T-cells are low."

"Your -"

"Too low."

"You -"

"And I'm losing it."

"What?"

"And I don't think I'll have much longer to do everything with you that I wanted to."

Mark's throat is dry and he swallows, hard, shutting his eyes. He can't tell whether he wants to scream or throw up, so he doesn't do anything.

He feels like a bastard. Of _course_ it wasn't about him, but it wasn't about _her_ either. Whoever she is. It was about Roger, and how his life and his health are beginning to fall out of his control. He wouldn't have known about the specifics but if he'd quit thinking about himself for two fucking seconds -

"And, I mean, for Angel it was ..."

Oh God.

For Angel, it was ... Long. Brutal. Ugly.

"And I just ..." He looks up at Mark, helplessly, and he doesn't finish his sentence.

Mark feels just as helpless, and can't even bring himself to look at Roger. He's thought before what he would do when this happened, things he needs to say, things they need to do, and everything just falls flat. He can't say the things he needs to say. He can't say _anything_, and he can't think about anything except Angel, and how he was barely able to speak those last few days, watching Mimi put ice chips into his mouth when he couldn't lift a glass of water, watching Collins trying so hard to keep it together and failing.

He can't even keep it together _now_, now that he knows the time they've got left is being measured in months, not years.


	6. lasts

005. lasts 

The last time this happened (for both of them) ultimately didn't end well, and Mark, it turns out, has become so wary of relationships that the first time Roger tries to kiss him, he pushes him away. It's a good thing they're drunk, because they'll both be able to laugh it off in the morning. They can still ignore this even though everyone else has seen it coming for years.

Roger isn't good at impulse control even when he's sober, and tends to make life-changing decisions at bad times.

It's even worse when he's drinking. When he's been having a hard time, he becomes moody and belligerent. But on good days, he becomes even more honest and friendly than usual. Mark prefers him this way, naturally, and doesn't mean to piss him off by shoving him away. They're both a little shaken and embarrassed by the experience, so they drink more quickly, trying to forget, seeing which one of them passes out first.

This time, it's Mark. Unfortunately, both of them retain their memories well, despite the alcohol. In the morning, they pretend to forget anyway, because it's easier that way, to deal with rejection (Roger) and confusion (Mark). Roger spends the rest of the day miserable, and Mark spends the rest of the day disoriented.

Mark wants to get drunk again. Booze costs money, but he's still got some saved after working for _Buzzline_ and from selling his film, and he's all too happy to blow it on this. He gets the cheapest vodka he can find at the liquor store, shit that burns going down, but Roger doesn't seem to be up for it tonight. He's lying on the couch when Mark walks through the door, his eyes not moving from the ceiling, no greeting offered at all.

Maureen gave lots of kisses. She kissed him all the time, first friendly pecks on the cheek when she first moved into the loft, later dramatic fierce kisses, then less-dramatic going-out-the-door kisses, and finally not-so-friendly, I'm-cheating-on-you pecks on the cheek. After they broke up - after she dumped him - and after the initial awkwardness, it was back to friendly pecks on the cheek. He always needed more, even when she was sleeping with other people, even when it was clear she was getting sick of him.

Funny how Roger couldn't even get one in and the effects have lasted this long.

"Um. Roger?" He's breaking the unspoken rule here. Don't talk about it, because it'll go away eventually.

"Yeah."

"About last night, I -"

"Don't worry about it. I was drunk, and I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, you know. It's just, uh, hard. Seeing how badly everyone else's relationships turned out and -"

"I said don't worry about it."

"You're pissed."

"No." _Yes_. "It's okay."

This was what he was afraid of. This was why he pushed Roger away. They were drunk, and stupid, and nothing good ever comes of that.

He feels like an idiot, though, for taking Roger at face value the way he did. He should have persisted, but this is Roger when he's moody and belligerent. It's easy to get disconcerted. He closes his bedroom door and lets himself fall facefirst onto his bed.

He didn't mean to fall asleep, but when Roger comes into his room he wakes up, suddenly, which is the worst way to wake up.

"Hey," Roger says, not looking at him. "Sorry about earlier. I should have let you finish."

Mark is still half-asleep, and trying to catch up, struggling to figure out what the hell Roger's talking about. _Oh_. That. Of course.

"Oh, uh, I don't really remember anymore, not exactly what I was going to say. I mean, I didn't want to make you mad or, uh ..." He moves over to the edge of his bed, next to the wall, so Roger can sit down. He clears his throat. "You know. Hurt your feelings or anything."

"Oh. I didn't mean to make you leave earlier, I just ..." And Roger looks so small and confused that Mark has to sit up and kiss him, really kiss him this time, neither of them shying away. Roger's shoulders go rigid at first, as Mark moves closer, putting his lips to his friend's. After a moment he feels Roger's hands on his face and in his hair, and he sighs.

"Yeah," Roger says suddenly, and pauses. "_This_ is what I meant to do earlier."

* * *

**A/N**: hey. i do hope you'll forgive me for interpreting this prompt in such a convoluted way. i just really, really didn't want to write anything in which roger dies. 


	7. months

009. months 

After Mimi dies, Roger packs up and leaves. Again. The night before he goes, he says something to Mark about California. Somewhere so far and so removed from Mimi, Mark supposes, that Roger figures he won't be able to help but forget about her.

Mark understands, and he hates seeing Roger this way, so he does what good friends do. Encourages. Supports. Even when he has to keep himself from telling Roger to stay. Instead he asks, "Are you coming back?"

Roger shakes his head, shrugging. "I don't know. I'll call."

And just like last time, that's it. And just like last time, Roger doesn't call. Mark's not really sure he trusts himself to keep from saying things that are better left unsaid. It wouldn't be fair to dump all of that on Roger, not when he's trying to sort everything out.

But really, that's irrelevant. Roger's gone for weeks, and then months, and he hasn't called once. Mark's even taken to actually answering the phone, just in case it's Roger who's been hanging up when the answering machine comes on.

When Roger finally does call in early September, Mark looks down at his fingernails, the edges ragged from his chewing on them all the time, and says, "Hey, Rog."

"Mark. Um. Have you ... replaced me yet? Gotten another roommate?"

He didn't bother looking for another roommate. He's got enough money to cover everything, albeit just barely, and he's not sure he'd feel comfortable with someone new here. He's sure it would feel even less like home than it already does. He's nervous as hell, of course, sometimes wondering if he's going to wake up to the sound of windows being smashed and people coming in to kill him and take whatever he's got. "No."

"Would it be okay ... can I come back?" Roger sounds nervous too, and Mark can feel himself becoming annoyed until Roger adds, "I'm sorry. I did it again, didn't I?"

"What?"

"Tried to ignore everything. Ran from it. I'm sorry."

Mark doesn't respond to that, just says, "Yeah. Come back."

"It'll take a few days. The bus and everything." Mark nods, despite the knowledge that Roger isn't there to see it.

"Okay. Call me when you get to the city."

"I will." They're bad at saying goodbye, so there's a long silence on the line, until Roger says, "I'll see you in a few days, then," and hangs up abruptly.

Somehow Mark scarcely believes Roger's really coming back, or that they even had that conversation until the sound of the door opening wakes him up, and he jolts awake and nearly falls off the couch. He's not sure whether he was expecting Roger or some stranger coming to rob the place. But it's Roger with his guitar case and his bag and his hair sun-bleached, and he's smiling and already moving toward Mark. They're unable to say anything, just like last time, so they don't bother and just hold onto each other, and just like last time Mark realizes how unfamiliar the smile on his face feels.


	8. dream

092. dream 

It's funny how sleep was sort of an annoyance when he could sleep all he wanted, when he could choose what time to sleep and what time to wake up, when he could get all eight hours no problem, as easily as lying down and shutting his eyes, and how sometimes he wanted or needed to stay awake so he'd drink soda, coffee, take no-doze pills. Whatever it takes.

Then insomnia set in and sometimes he feels like he'd kill if it meant he could get to sleep and stay that way for longer than an hour.

Lately Mark is afraid to sleep. When you're trying to help an addict, you're not supposed to let them out of your sight. Ideally you should have at least one other person helping, but Collins is at MIT and Benny's moved out. It's just Mark and he has to deal with it. So he listens for the door opening, or Roger moving around the loft, or water running in the bathroom. He's a light sleeper anyway.

Well, he used to be. Now he can't sleep at all and he's been wandering around, feeling like he's half-dead. Constantly worrying about Roger started it, probably, and then the nightmares he started having made it worse, but the fact that Roger managed to get out once while Mark was sleeping on the couch was likely what finally did it. Usually he sleeps outside Roger's door, but he screwed up and fell asleep on the couch that night. He tried to sleep the next night and couldn't. At all. And as he went longer and longer without sleeping he found he could function less and less, until he started forgetting in mid-sentence what he was talking about, leaving things half-done, getting headaches so bad that nothing they had in the loft could get rid of them.

Roger shot up again yesterday, and since late last night he's been asleep on the couch. He stays away from his room now, mostly, and Mark can't really blame him. He can't fault him for not wanting all these reminders of April around, but it's easy to fault him for what he does to keep from being reminded. Jesus, he _knows_ it's hard, dealing with addiction and death and disease, but Roger's not even _trying_, not anymore, and that's really what Mark is angry about.

Yes. He's angry. But instead of giving up and letting Roger go on his fucking downward spiral, Mark convinces himself to try again, find Roger's stash, get rid of it. They'll talk later, after Roger wakes up. And he'll try again after that. And again.

Roger really only stays away from his room when he's sober, and unless he's still got his stash on him, it's probably in there, but of course, all the old hiding places are out. The boxes under the bed, full of notebooks and pictures and phone numbers and everything. Inside jackets in the closet. In the drawers. The compartments in his guitar case. Amplifiers.

Out of desperation, he checks books, under furniture, behind baseboards, until he's checked every corner and compartment in the room, any hiding place that he can think of. Groaning in frustration, he sits on Roger's bed, frowning down at the floor. His anger is gone, and mostly he just feels hopeless now. Like if this is what Roger wants, then there's little he'll be able to do to stop him, short of calling the police and getting him sent to mandatory rehab, a place he can't just check out of and then disappear. He hates himself a little for thinking of it, for even considering letting someone else deal with Roger. He sighs, and curls up on his side, staring straight ahead of him, at the nightstand, past the lamp and the empty coffee cup and the alarm clock -

The alarm clock.

He grabs it, turning it upside down, ripping the backing off of the battery compartment, and there it is. Roger's stash. And the sigh he releases now is a breath he didn't even know he was holding, and he figures it's good that he's feeling a little less hopeless now, a little less like giving up on his friend.

He sprawls back out on the bed, shoving the small plastic bag in his pocket. After that brief moment of optimism, he's even more exhausted than before, and he doesn't really fall asleep so much as pass out from fatigue. Despite that, he still dreams. No nightmares this time, just Roger, the one from a few months ago, before addiction and death and disease. And when he wakes up less than an hour later, he feels empty again, and he thinks that he'd have preferred a nightmare to that. He'd have preferred to dream about monsters and drowning and being torn apart instead of dreaming of his friend, and having to wake up and remember that the person still sleeping in the living room and the person he dreamed about couldn't be much more different.


	9. sound

027. sound 

Someone asked Roger a question once, about which of his senses he'd give up if he had to choose. It just struck him as ridiculous and maybe a little morbid. Who thinks about things like that? He figures most people, like him, would choose smell, because if you have taste then you really don't need smell too much. Then the person switched up the question, asking which one would he give up last and without hesitation he answered, "Hearing. Sound," almost before he even had a chance to think about it.

He loves music, of course, and he loves sound check and tuned guitars and even feedback from amplifiers, but lately the sounds he associates with Mark are the sounds he loves the most. He loves the sound of the coffee maker, of creaking bedsprings, of his light snoring and his talking in his sleep. He loves Mark's voice and the slightly ragged edge that's almost always there. He loves the way Mark's voice strains and cracks when Roger's fucking him.

He was always too worried about Mimi to be able to pay attention to things like that, and when he was with April, he was either shooting up or strung out most of the time. He always said that things became so much more intense, so much more _real_, when he was on smack, and thinking about it now he wonders if everybody wanted to constantly throttle him when he was like that. When he was a junkie. When he could only really hear what he wanted to hear. When he wouldn't have been able to notice the crackling sound of burning paper and pot in Collins' joint and how his voice just gets richer and darker; the impatient way Maureen clears her throat and how she giggles instead of shrieking with laughter lately; how the smile always creeps into Joanne's voice even though she tries not to let it; the way Mimi just loses control when she begins to laugh; the mirth Benny hides behind his curtness; the way Mark can't stop himself from snorting when he laughs.

When Roger was just a moody morbid junkie he just wanted silence, but he just can't bear silence anymore, especially not in the loft. If no one's around, he has to have the stereo on or his amplifiers turned up as high as he dares while he plays his guitar, feedback and neighbors be damned. And if silence is keeping him from falling asleep at night he can just listen to Mark, mumbling in his sleep, occasionally sighing or purring softly, and it helps.


	10. summer

047. summer 

Autumn in Santa Fe feels more like summer to Roger. November is t-shirt weather, and he loves it. He loves the sharp angles of mountains off in the distance, he loves the sharp contrast between the land and the sky, and he loves seeing horizon all around. He lives in his car and he has to bathe in gas station bathrooms, washing his hair in the sink, but for once he's making his life work. He's making a living - a small one, but a living - with his music again, and he forgot that once, a long time ago, it was like this. The songs just kept coming, and he doubted he could have stopped them if he'd wanted to.

But eventually, he feels like he's writing the same songs over and over again, and he knows none of them is the song he came here to write. He knows that the people here, though pleasant, aren't friends, and he realizes that he doesn't even know them.

"There is so much to care about. There's me - there's _Mimi_." He didn't even notice it then, but it's been on his mind for weeks now, how it almost sounded like Mark was trying to correct himself, as if he didn't mean to mention himself first.

Roger does miss Mimi; he worries about her all the time, and he hopes that Benny's able to help her more than he could. He hates that he didn't stop himself from yelling so much, telling her that he was fucking sick of it and sick of her and every other thing he said to her that didn't help her at all, everything that he regrets now. He misses her, and he wishes he could tell her that he's sorry.

He did everything wrong, trying to help her get clean. Mark never yelled, never told him he was sick of all of it, even though he must have been.

It was summer when he finally got over it. All he can really think about is being in Central Park, leaving the loft for the first time in weeks. He remembers lying in the shade, on the grass, Mark nearby. Neither of them saying much of anything because of a ridiculous, almost superstitious anxiety. Like maybe if they mentioned that Roger was two months clean then something would happen and he _wouldn't_ be clean anymore, and Roger knew neither of them would be able to handle that.

"Mark?" he'd said then, sitting up, leaning against the tree. Mark looked over at him then, and Roger added, "Thanks."

Mark smiled then, and Roger realized he hadn't seen it much for a long time. "Hey, I'm glad I could help you, and ... you know." _You're clean. You're better._

"Yeah." Roger paused, and added, "I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own, you know."

"Most people wouldn't have. I wanted to help you." Roger's hand had been gripping Mark's knee for a few moments, and he didn't move when they lapsed back into that uneasy silence. Roger hadn't felt, even then, that 'thanks' was enough, but what else could he say?

So he didn't say anything, just watched his friend out of the corner of his eye. Watched him fidgeting with a few blades of grass he'd pulled from the ground; watched him shifting carefully so he was always in the shade, trying to avoid a sunburn; watched him push his hands through his hair, opening his mouth, looking like he was about to say something, then thinking better of it and concentrating on his blades of grass again; watched him giving up on the grass and gnawing on his fingernails.

There was so much Roger wanted to say then, but the words hadn't come. He'd spent so much time as removed as he could be from everyone that he felt like he'd lost the ability to communicate. He was terrified that he would never be able to write lyrics again, or to form chord progressions and bridges and refrains. He didn't think he could even speak anymore, much less sing.

Speak.

He wanted to say he was sorry for scaring the hell out of Mark all those times. For relapsing when he hadn't even really gotten clean in the first place. For effectively saying so many times that he didn't care if drugs killed him before disease got a chance to, and fuck anyone who _did_ care. For the time he locked the bathroom door before he passed out, and making Mark kick the door down to get to him.

It was hard for him to find the right words, but it was even harder to keep himself from saying the wrong words. And there were a lot of wrong words he could have said. Best friends might make better lovers, but everyone knows that if that kind of relationship fails, you're losing more than a lover. More often than not, you lose a friend too, and Roger didn't have such a huge number of friends back then, and he definitely wouldn't have been able to find anyone quite like Mark if he fucked everything up.

He was terrified. Because while he'd been talking himself out of saying all of those wrong words, Mark had been inching closer and closer, still trying to escape the sun. Roger's hand was still on Mark's knee, and he took it away abruptly and reminded himself not to do anything stupid. That was two years ago, and he'd done stupid shit anyway, like fucking things up with everyone he knew, including Mark, and he hadn't even had to fuck him to do it.

Right now, a few weeks before Christmas, standing under the bluest sky he's ever seen, two thousand miles away from everyone he cares about, he doesn't want to be alone. He knows Mark is alone, under that cold gray sky in New York, hating every minute of it, and Roger can't believe that he's still here. After he sells his car, he's got enough money for a bus ticket home, and when he's not trying to write a new song, he's sleeping, and he's dreaming about summer.


	11. spring

048. spring 

The springs in Roger's bed are old and rusting.

Not that Mark is terribly surprised at this but he'd be willing to buy a new mattress for his friend if it meant that he wouldn't be able to hear the noises that Roger and Mimi make when they're fucking anymore. Every time Mimi steps into their apartment he hopes they'll go downstairs to her place instead of staying here, but they never do. He hates waking up in the middle of the night, and he hates getting hard at the noises Roger makes, and he hates the thoughts of Roger fucking him like that, and he hates that it's so insistent that he has to stroke himself, keeping quiet, terrified that Roger will hear him even though there's no way he ever could, not over his own shouting and Mimi's moaning and screaming and swearing.

Sometimes, though, the moaning and the squeaking and groaning of bedsprings subsides, and it's just screaming and swearing, and Mark worries about both of them then. When they fight like this, Mark won't see either of them for days: Roger will stay in his room and Mimi ... he doesn't know where Mimi goes. Then they'll be back together just as suddenly as they weren't together, and the smiles will gradually return to their faces, and then they'll be bugging him to leave his camera and come to CBGB's with them, or to go to Central Park with them, or to go get dinner with them, and of course he goes, because he's glad to see them happy again, for however long it will last this time.

They fought last night. He heard Mimi running to the door and slamming it shut behind her. He heard her sobbing, again, and he wanted to go tell her it would be okay, but she probably just needed to be alone. He wanted to go ask Roger what happened this time, but he had a feeling it was the same as always. Roger loves Mimi, and he can't stand to watch her destroying herself, and Mark remembers how that feels. So he stayed in his room, and hoped they fixed things sometime soon.

Mark is surprised when the door to the loft opens and Roger comes in grinning, because he hadn't even known Roger had left. He watches his friend shuffle over and fall next to him on the couch, the old wood frame protesting under the sudden weight. "Hey," Roger says, still smiling, and Mark realizes now that Roger is pretty drunk.

"Hey," he replies. "Where's Mimi?"

Roger's smile falters for a moment. "I don't know. Her place, I guess. I hope." He lights a cigarette and lets his head fall back against the couch. "You heard us last night?"

Mark doesn't tell him that he hears them all the time, when they're fighting or when they're fucking, and there's no way he can avoid hearing them. He just nods, and the smile is really gone from Roger's face now. "Shit. Sorry," Roger says. "I know I'm not helping her by fighting with her all the time. Shit," he mutters again. He looks over at Mark, and asks, "Do we have anything to drink?" Mark shakes his head, and Roger shrugs. "Oh well. Sorry about ... you know." They're silent after that, until Mark hears Roger's breathing become heavier and realizes that he's fallen asleep.

"Hey," he whispers, shaking Roger gently, "You should go to bed."

"Hm? Oh." Roger doesn't move for a few moments, and then asks, "Could you help me to my room? I'm, uh, a little ... drunk." Mark snickers, but he helps Roger up anyway, and Roger really is very drunk. He staggers when Mark pulls him to his feet, and it takes him a minute to wrap his arm around Mark's shoulders. Mark puts his arm around Roger's waist and helps him to his room, wincing as he lets Roger go too early. The bedsprings groan as Roger drops onto his bed, and he starts undressing while he's still lying on his back. Mark blushes as Roger unbuttons his jeans, and he turns to go.

"Wait," Roger calls. "Could you stay?" he asks, somehow managing to pull his shirt over head, tossing it on the floor. "Sorry, I mean, I just -"

"Yeah, Roger. I'll stay." And the smile is back on Roger's face, that stupid childish face-splitting grin that makes Mark just have to grin back. He gets in bed next to Roger, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He doesn't realize Roger is staring at him until he glances over and sees that his friend is still awake. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just not really tired anymore, I guess." Then Mark feels arms around him and he's being pulled over toward Roger, who's mumbling, "You don't mind, do you? I mean, I _am_ tired, kind of, but it's just hard to sleep without -"

"It's okay. I don't mind." They've done this before, when it gets too cold for either of them to stand it, when Roger was detoxing and shivering and needed someone to hold onto. Roger just didn't have an erection those times, pressing into Mark's back like this, and now Mark is hard, too. Really, it's no surprise when Roger's hand inches down toward the waist of Mark's jeans, pulling the button open and pushing the zipper down and thumbing the head of his cock, but he gasps and shivers anyway, his hips arching toward Roger's hand. He feels Roger's lips on the back of his neck, warm and rough like his fingers, and it's getting harder for him to remember why this isn't such a great idea. Words like 'friendship' and 'Mimi' flirt through his head, but then Roger's grinning at him and shoving him onto his back and pushing his jeans all the way down his hips and Mark just can't stop shaking while Roger fumbles in his drawer for condoms. This is stupid, this is _so_ stupid and he can't _believe_ he's letting this happen but then he feels Roger slipping a condom over his cock and he just swallows him down and those thoughts just evaporate, along with every thought of keeping his hips still and not pushing his fingernails into Roger's scalp and not moaning and swearing so loudly.

He tries, again, to protest, but when he feels Roger's fingers inside him he has to concentrate on not coming right there. Shit. _Shit_. "Roger," he says, but all he hears is a long moan, his voice cracking and scratchy. Shit. _Shit_.

"You okay?" Roger asks, and Mark tries to say "yes." He'd never believe one syllable would be so difficult to say clearly, but it is, and all he can do is nod and whimper a little, embarrassed and kind of awkward. "Do you want me to -"

"_Yes_," Mark interrupts, and maybe it wasn't so hard to say after all. Roger grins again, unzipping his jeans slowly, teasing, pushing Mark away when he tries to pull them off himself. Roger's laughing now, but Mark is having trouble finding the humor in the situation.

"Relax," Roger tells him, "Laugh a little." Mark still can't form an intelligent response, so he just swears and growls a little, watching Roger put some lube on his cock. He shuts up when Roger pulls him up onto his knees and turns him around.

It hurts. Not even in a good way, not yet, and Roger's drunk so his rhythm is sloppy and he's a little bit too rough, but Mark grits his teeth and digs his nails into the wooden headboard, and soon enough it feels good, and then he hears the springs start screeching with every move they make and his head starts pounding and he's shouting himself hoarse moments later, Roger's hand on his cock, grunting and moaning behind him.

He can hear Roger's harsh, heavy breathing stop, and then he shudders and pushes harder into Mark, crying out again, wrapping his arms around Mark's waist and pulling him closer, almost squeezing the breath out of him as he comes. Roger pulls out, and they both fall down on the bed, and when Roger starts stroking Mark's cock again, his lips against Mark's neck and chest, his rhythm is just as sloppy, but Mark gets off a few moments later anyway, crying out again and pushing up into Roger's hand, gripping his friend closer.

When he can finally open his eyes and look over at Roger, grinning like an idiot, Roger is asleep, and his smile disappears, and he remembers just what is going on. He remembers that Roger and Mimi will probably have fixed things by tomorrow, and that he and Roger probably won't ever bring this up, and they certainly won't do it again. He was right - this _was_ stupid. He gets up to go to his own room, not realizing that he's woken Roger, and not hearing when Roger asks him what he's doing and asking him to come back.

He goes out alone the next day. When he gets home later on, he finds out that he was right. Roger and Mimi have fixed things. They've probably apologized for yelling. Promises have probably been made. The smiles have probably returned to their faces. Roger's probably forgotten all about last night. And how does he know this?

The fucking bedsprings are keeping him awake again.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry this part took so long. If you're still with me, I quite appreciate it. Also, thanks for the kind words and/or favorites. It's very encouraging to know that people are enjoying the things I'm writing. I'm working on the next prompt right now (062. shattered), so hopefully it'll be up in a few days. 


	12. shattered

062. shattered 

He remembers what Angel said a few years ago. "Times are shitty, but I'm pretty sure they can't get worse."

She was talking about New York. Roger has to take a deep breath and remember where they are. He has to remember that it's cold. Winter makes people desperate. They need money, so they can buy oil or pay for cold medicine or feed their kids. He tries to give the person the benefit of the doubt, and imagines it was a struggling father trying to provide for his children, or a woman who needed her AZT, or a homeless kid who hadn't eaten in days.

He tries not to think about the fact that it was probably a drug addict, just desperate for a fix.

The truth is, there's been a string of burglaries lately, and even though he didn't exactly see it coming, Roger's not terribly surprised.

The fucking windows are shattered, and the hot plate, his stereo and his guitar and his amplifier, and whatever heat they could keep in the place is gone now. This would have to happen the one fucking winter when they had enough money to pay the heating bill, wouldn't it?

Shit.

Mark's nowhere around. Roger hopes he's still out, and he hopes he's got his camera with him, because if that's been stolen too, Mark's going to be a mess. Hell, Roger's getting there himself, because it's just now sinking in that they took his god damned _guitar_.

_Calm down. Somebody's grandma must have been sick, and she needs soup and bread. That must be why they would do this. Take our shit with no consideration at all. We're cold too, you know._ He's shaken from his thoughts when the door to the loft opens, and he's startled by the realization that he doesn't really feel safe here anymore. He turns quickly, his hands clenched into fists, and sees that it's just Mark. He's forgotten to breathe.

"Roger? What happened?"

He tries to say that someone broke in, that some things are missing but other than that everything is alright, but when he actually speaks, he finds himself trying to explain about somebody's sick grandmother, someone who can't feed their kids, the girl who needs her AZT, and that's why the windows are busted and their stuff's gone. A whole bunch of babble that doesn't make any sense. He's confused and angry and afraid, and he wasn't even here when it happened. Shit, he sounds pathetic, like a kid waiting for his older brother to explain things to him, and when he realizes that that's not too far off, he gets annoyed with himself. He's lived in New York for years and he should be used to this kind of thing.

He clears his throat, and tries again. "They took the hot plate, and my stereo and my guitar and my amplifier. Do you have your camera?" _Please tell me you have your camera. Don't let this be any worse than it already is._

"Yeah," Mark replies, patting his bag, his fingers searching for the familiar weight of his camera. "Roger, are you alright?"

"Fine, yeah."

"Were you here ... when -"

"No. I just got back a few minutes ago."

"I'm sorry about your guitar."

"Yeah."

They stand there for a few minutes, unsure of what to do, shivering and trying to shrink down into their jackets. Eventually Mark takes him by the elbow and leads him over to the couch, pulling him down and leaving his arm around Roger's shoulders. Roger's sure that Mark feels the same way he does now - afraid and unsafe, even though this is home. He's not showing it, though, but then again, Mark never does.

People don't generally come back to the places they've robbed. Roger knows this, but it's still not too comforting. "It's pretty freaky, isn't it." He didn't mean to say it aloud. Mark's nodding, murmuring his agreement.

"We should do something about the window." So they find some cardboard boxes and some duct tape, and Mark's got his camera while Roger sweeps up the broken glass, breaks the boxes down with an X-acto knife and uses his teeth to tear off long strips of tape, putting down layer after layer of tape around the edges of the cardboard. He thinks he's done okay sealing it up, considering that this was all they had to work with to keep the cold out of the loft. It would still be pretty stupid to turn the heat on, so they'll just have to pile the blankets on and huddle together until they can replace the glass.

Mark calls the police while Roger sits at the windowsill, his view obstructed by ugly brown corrugated cardboard. "I need to report a burglary," Mark is saying, "Someone broke into my apartment." He pauses. "No, we don't know when. Between seven and ten o'clock, I think."

Roger stops listening after a minute or so, and lets Mark get on with it, while he keeps staring out the window - or at the broken-down cardboard box. Whatever. He's vaguely aware of Mark asking him for the serial number on his stereo, but he doesn't know it. Whoever took it will probably file the number off anyway.

After a while, Mark hangs up, and says, "He said we should check out pawn shops - they're our best bet if we want to get our stuff back."

"I figured he'd say that."

"We can go look tomorrow before you go to work."

"Yeah, but you don't need to come. I'll go myself." He starts to light a cigarette, but he finds that his hands are shaking so much that he can't strike the match properly - either he doesn't do it hard enough or he does it too hard, breaking the match. He gives up, and they go to bed, but Roger can't sleep. He's too angry, too afraid, too cold. He's wired, he wants to punch a hole in the wall, he wants to scream. He wants to pick up his guitar and play something harsh and angry and stupid and brutal, something that isn't his style at all, but he remembers that his guitar is _gone_ and he's probably not going to get it back.

He can't do anything constructive, and it's driving him insane.

If he bothered to really figure out the amount of time he's spent sitting at this windowsill ... well, what does it matter? The point is, he's spent a _lot_ of time at this windowsill. He knows this view, right down to the flaws in the panes of glass. He knows that they're so old that the glass is thicker at the bottom than it is at the top. He _likes_ knowing this, being so intimate with a space that these things that wouldn't be apparent to anyone else are as clear as day to him.

But now it's just ugly brown cardboard.

* * *

**A/N:** Pfft. "A few days." Oh well. I hope you enjoyed it, and again, many thanks for the reviews, alerts, favorites, and idle glances. I'm going to make a valiant attempt to write something happy next time, but I can promise nothing. 


	13. children

Maureen wants kids.

Mark isn't really surprised when he hears this, but everyone else is. Everyone else is trying to gently tell her that maybe now isn't the right time, that if she's going to adopt like she's planning now then there's no need to hurry, and maybe a few more months or years of consideration would be best. What they all want to say is _Maureen, you're still a baby yourself._ Mark knows that Maureen knows what they all really want to say, and it's only making her more certain of what she wants to do, and he knows Joanne is getting information on adoption agencies on her lunch hours, stressing over financial statements and legal documentation and wondering if all those nights Maureen has spent in jail after her spectacular protests are going to have an effect on the agencies' decisions.

Mark doesn't like kids. There's the mess, and the noise, but there's also the fact that you have to be so careful. There is so much to break there, to mess up forever, and then they'll mess up _their_ kids, and on it goes. Mark hates that kind of responsibility. He'd rather save it for someone who knows what they're doing, or at least someone who is that careful, or someone who could learn to be that careful.

"Why is it," Maureen asked him one day, "why is it that every fool in the world can have a baby, but it's so hard for people like us to adopt them?" It was a rhetorical question, one that she didn't really want an answer to so much as she needed to change the subject, to get some kind of reassurance, so Mark didn't say anything. He just shook his head and waited for her to continue. "Did you know that the laws in China will absolutely not let you adopt Chinese children if you're a same-sex couple? Or even if you're single?" Obviously, Mark didn't know this, since he hadn't been keeping up on adoption laws in foreign countries, but he felt bad for Maureen. He felt bad watching her struggling to make sense of it, watching her feeling hurt and unsure, not willing to get her hopes up in case things didn't work out. "And there are so many kids in China who are waiting to be adopted, and we can't take any of them." She sighed and pushed her mug of tea away from her, resting her chin in her hand.

Unlike most of their friends, Mark doesn't think that Maureen would be bad at being a mother. Besides, even if she _were_, Joanne would be there, and Joanne reminds him so much of his own mother that he's sure she'd be able to pick up the slack.

He's happy that Maureen and Joanne are so excited about this, that they're smiling every time he sees them, even when they're poring over stacks of paperwork or on their way to an interview. Maureen tugs at her earlobes and fiddles with her hair when she gets nervous, but Joanne somehow gets even calmer under pressure. "How can you be so _calm_, baby?" Maureen keeps asking her. Again, it's a question Maureen doesn't really need an answer to: she just wants everyone to know how nervous _she_ is. She just needs reassurance. They leave for their interview, and Mark and Roger wish them good luck, and they leave to go to Cindy's house for a long weekend.

Roger likes kids. He can ignore the mess and the noise, somehow, and just be a kid with them. He doesn't think about being careful with them. He just _does_ it, and when Mark sees it, he's in awe of it, and his hands are itching to film it all, but Cindy told him to leave the camera or face dire consequences. It's been months - almost a year - since he's seen his sister, and he figured (mistakenly) that he could get by without his camera for one stupid weekend.

One stupid weekend. For one stupid weekend it is all about sitting in his sister's backyard, watching her kids play (the last time he saw them they were a lot redder and cried a lot more; they've actually got a little bit of a personality now). Catching up. Realizing that for all his bitching and moaning, he actually _missed_ his parents and his sister, at least a little. Not having an answer for why he doesn't come to visit or even just call more often.

He told her about him and Roger over the phone, when she called and asked him to come back to Scarsdale, just for a weekend. She was surprised, at first, but after thinking about it for a moment she said, "Well, I guess I'm not _really_ surprised. Geez, Marky, it doesn't matter. You'll come, won't you?"

Of course he said yes. He had to say yes.

Saturday morning he and Roger and Cindy's sons, Jeremy and Thomas, are the only ones in the house, since she and her husband Jacob are out buying groceries for dinner tonight. She offered to take the kids with them, but Roger insisted they stay. "I like them," he said, "They're cute."

"You don't want kids, do you?" Mark asks him when Cindy and Jacob have left and Jeremy and Thomas are across the backyard, out of earshot. When Roger laughs and shakes his head Mark breathes a sigh of relief. He realizes he was only half-joking.

They don't say much more, because for two people who are used to rolling out of bed sometime around noon, nine-thirty is just too early for anything except coffee. When Cindy came in their room at eight o'clock yesterday morning, her face and voice entirely too cheery, telling them that she'd made breakfast and that they were damn well going to come downstairs and eat it, Roger grumbled to him, "You didn't tell me that _this_ was part of the one stupid weekend."

Mark replied, "She didn't tell _me_ that either."

In all it's a pretty good way to distract him for the weekend. Between time with his family and trying to stave off questions from his parents about when he's going to find a girlfriend (he still hasn't told them about him and Roger, and he doesn't think he's going to, because he keeps hearing Roger's alarmingly accurate impression of his mother's voice saying, "But he's not even _Jewish_!"), he doesn't have much time to think about the interview he's got with the adoption agency on Monday afternoon, or to think about why the hell Maureen would _insist_ they list him as a character witness or whatever it is he's supposed to be.

The apprehension he feels around children also surfaces whenever he does get a chance to think about the interview on Monday - the thought that he has any effect at all on whether or not Maureen and Joanne get a kid worries him a little, because he is pretty good at saying the wrong things sometimes. He gets that feeling that he'll have to be so careful with every single thing - what he wears, how he greets the interviewer. Not to mention what he says and how he says it. Maureen reassured him, told him that he always seems so honest and it would be hard for the representative from the agency _not_ to trust him ("But you are going to say _good_ things, right?" she'd asked him then, which really meant, _you do believe in us, right?_).

Cindy has to blink back a few tears when she drops them off at the train station on Monday morning ("Early _again_," Roger groused as they were packing up), hugging and kissing them both. "Call me, alright?" she says to Mark, and he really doesn't remember her ever being _this_ attached to him or Roger, but he tells her he'll call and they get on the train and now Mark really _does_ have to think about the interview today.

"Will you come with me today?" he asks Roger, who has been drifting in and out of sleep for a while.

"Are you sure about that?" he replies, "You know. The ex-junkie AIDS-patient thing," and Mark thinks about how much he hates it when Roger gets glib about that, "Not to mention the unemployed thing. I don't want to ruin it for them."

"So you don't have to come _in_," Mark says, and he cringes because it kind of sounds like he's ashamed of Roger or something and how the hell is he going to get through this interview if he can't speak like a normal human being? "I don't know," he adds, "I guess I could use the moral support, is all."

"It's not _your_ kid."

"Yeah, but Maureen and Joanne _trust_ me. It's _their_ kid, maybe, and instead of just asking another one of Joanne's colleagues, they asked me."

"I know. Don't be so nervous. They asked you for a reason. They're not idiots."

"Come with me anyway."

"Fine. I'll sit outside or something."

Mark doesn't know what he was expecting - maybe one of those imposing buildings with ceiling-to-floor windows in every office, and stern-looking secretaries wearing severe makeup. He definitely wasn't expecting a block of offices tucked away in a small, squat, dusty building. He checks the address Joanne wrote down for him (her tight script a little hard on the eyes), and looks over at Roger, who is already sitting on a bench a few feet away from the front entrance, lighting a cigarette. "I guess this is the place," Mark says, and Roger nods.

"You'd better hurry. Your appointment's in five minutes," he says around his cigarette. "Don't worry so much. They've got a backup plan if this doesn't work out. And if you screw it up, they'll know next time, won't they?" he adds, grinning.

Mark tries to smile back, fails, and swallows hard. "Well. I guess I'll see you in a while," he replies, and spends entirely too long trying to pull open the door, which is supposed to be pushed.

"Hi," he says to the secretary, who is not very stern-looking at all, nor is she even wearing much makeup. "I, um, have an appointment with Eileen Pickford. 3:30."

"Mark Cohen?" she asks, looking down at her calendar.

"Yeah. Yes."

"Her office is the last one on the right. You're a little early. Or maybe she's a little late," she says, frowning and checking her clock. "But she'll be back soon, alright?"

"Sure. Okay. Thanks."

Ms. Pickford comes in a few minutes after him, a short woman, in her mid-fifties, maybe, with a kind face. She apologizes for being late, dropping her papers onto the floor as she moves past him. "Shoot!" she mutters, and Mark gets up to help her, but she brushes him away. "But thank you," she says as she sits at her desk. "So, Mr. Cohen -"

He can't stop himself from interrupting her to say, "It's Mark," and he cringes as he does so, because can't normal people be polite at this kind of thing? But Ms. Pickford smiles and continues, "Okay, Mark. Maureen's told me a lot about you, you know. You're a filmmaker?"

"Oh, yeah. _Yes_," he replies, not knowing what to do with this. "Well, I've been shooting footage for news stations a lot lately - it's kind of how I got started professionally, and it's a way to make money while I'm working on my own projects." He probably should be talking up Maureen and Joanne, not himself, but Ms. Pickford seems interested and he's nervous and every time he stops talking there's this awful silence in the room, which he hates.

"So how do you know Joanne and Maureen?" she asks when he is finally able to shut up and let her speak.

"Maureen and I have been friends for a long time, and I met Joanne when they started dating."

"Maureen told me you two used to be a couple."

He nods and says, "That's right," vaguely confused at why she would ask a question she already knew the answer to.

"How did it make you feel, knowing your girlfriend had left you for a woman?"

"No worse than it did if she'd left me for a man, really," he says, wondering exactly how much Ms. Pickford already knows about him. "We were having some problems anyway, I guess, and it didn't really surprise me as much as it should have, probably."

"And how did their relationship seem to be going when they first became a couple?"

"Well, it was pretty bad at first," he says before he can stop himself. "They fought a lot."

"Are they having problems now?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Do you think that Maureen and Joanne might have the impression that a child might fix some problems in their relationship?"

"No. I mean, they had a lot of problems when they first started dating, but I don't think I've seen them argue in ... well, a long time." He's probably saying the wrong things, but he's committed now - she's waiting for him to continue. "They went to Europe last year for their fifth anniversary. I think their reasons for this are the same as everyone else's." Ms. Pickford nods and smiles again, making notes on her pad and not saying anything, and Mark just keeps talking, because it freaks him out when she just sits there and writes at him. "And there's in vitro fertilization and everything, but they never even really thought about that." He doesn't mention the stories Maureen told him about meeting the couples whose last resort was adoption, who'd tried IVF, who'd spent thousands of dollars on it. She'd said it was a selfish process for selfish people.

When the interview is over, and he stands up, he glances at the notes she's made on her pad, half-expecting to see that she's been playing tic-tac-toe with herself or doing a crossword puzzle or something, still feeling that fear that he screwed up early and so completely that she's already made her decision and is just going through the motions, but it's full of quickly-scrawled notes in dark ink. She closes the notebook and smiles at him again. "Don't worry about that," she says. "Thank you for coming in," she adds, holding out her hand. He takes it, and she squeezes his hand a little. "I'm sure that you'll hear when we've made our decision. It was good meeting you, Mark." She walks with him out into the lobby and says goodbye, and greets another person sitting in the waiting room.

He sort of wants to ask Roger for a cigarette, but decides against it. "Hey," Roger says when he steps out of the building. "How did it go?"

"I don't know." He frowns a little. "Good, I guess."

"Good enough to get them a kid?"

"I hope so."

"Me too," Roger says after a moment, taking a drag off his cigarette.

Maureen made him promise to call after the interview - she's not home, but Joanne is. "So how did it go?" she asks him, and he doesn't know how to answer because he honestly doesn't know. He has the feeling she might get a little annoyed with him if he's honest about it, though (Joanne _hates_ not knowing), so he says, "Ms. Pickford seemed to like me," because she did. Mark isn't sure whether that's relevant, but Joanne seems satisfied, at least.

"Thank you for doing this, Mark," she says after a moment. "It means a lot to us."

He only sees Maureen once or twice in the next week, and eventually it's like she's disappeared - he doesn't see her at all for almost a month, and he wonders if he really did screw it up. If he did, he can't really blame her for being angry. "She's probably busy," Roger tells him one night, quietly picking out a few notes on his guitar, frowning a little as he turns one of the keys, adjusting the tuning. "You know how it gets," he adds after a moment, and continues playing. "She's busy, Joanne's busy. They've got to make time for each other in between working and worrying about the kid thing so much. Anyway, they'd let you know if they thought you fucked it up."

Mark nods. There's a book open on his lap, but he gave up trying to read it when Roger joined him on the couch, prodding him every once in a while with the head of his guitar, the ends of the metal strings scratching at his arm.

He nearly has a coronary a few days later when someone hammers violently at the door - not a terribly pleasant way to begin the day. He grunts when he hits the floor, having tripped on the sheets, and feels around for his glasses. As he leaves the room, Roger has just started to rouse, grumbling and pulling a pillow over his head, muttering a little.

It's Maureen. When he opens the door she throws her arms around him, and with the way she's babbling, Mark thinks this could be either good or bad news. "We did it!" she shouts. "We got a little girl!"

Mark is happy about this - he really is. But it's so early and he hit his head on the nightstand when he stood up, so he says, "You could have called, you know." But while she's explaining that she wanted to tell him in person, it hits him. "Oh! Oh god," he adds, grinning.

"I know! We've got to take you and Roger out to dinner sometime. _Can you believe this?_" Her eyes are a little red (she must have been crying) and she's alternating between speaking normally and shouting so loudly he wonders if Mimi can hear her downstairs. The whole damn building might know by now, for all he knows. She's raving on, still, about how excited she is and how they're really just fostering Jodie ("Jodie, that's her name, did I tell you?") for now, "but if it goes well, she'll be ours!"

Eventually she hugs him (tightly) again and says, "I've got to go. There's more damn forms to sign but after that ... oh my god!"

"Call me, okay?"

"Of course!" she shouts back, already halfway down the stairs by now. "I was serious about dinner! Tell Roger, okay?"

He shuts the door and goes back inside, and Roger's standing in the doorway of his room. "Wow. What's _she_ so excited about?" he asks, and Mark's just opened his mouth to reply when Roger adds, "Kidding. I heard most of it. The important parts."

"I'd be surprised if you _hadn't_ heard," Mark replies, still smiling.

"I told you there was nothing to worry about."

"You did," Mark nods. "Still, I doubt you'd be saying that if you'd been the one they wanted to interview."

Roger shrugs. "Maybe so. I'm going back to bed," he replies, yawning, and moves back into his room, throwing himself down on the bed.

Mark follows him, and finds it's easier to get back to sleep than it's been in weeks.

**a/n:** _Dude_. This prompt kicked my _ass_. I'm sorry it took so long, but you know how it goes, with school and family and real writing projects and stuff. Also, I confess I was hitting the _Scrubs_ fanfiction pretty hard. Still, how's _this_ for a happy story, by god? I had to guess on some of the stuff about adoption, because I know next to nothing about the process except what I read in that Dan Savage book, and I don't think that's terribly relevant to the kind of adoption Maureen and Joanne were doing. Anyway. I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for the reviews everyone's given me so far! The next prompt I'm working on is 93 (break-up) and hopefully it will _not_ take me six months to finish.


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